How Trade Has Affected Societies
Trade has tended to bring about peace more often than not. However, to control trade, nations have been willing to go to war. Thus, trade can be seen as a double-edged swordone that cuts both ways throughout history from the time of the Silk Road to now. Trade can cut one way towards peace, and the mere fact that trade can be so lucrative and that control of trade routes means control over a great many nations has also meant that trade can lead to war when one nation feels it is in its own best interests to assert itself. This paper will show how trade has affected societies for 2000 years by being the motivation for both peace and war.
The Silk Road was an ancient trade between the East and the West that existed from approximately the second century BC to the 15th century AD. Silk was a commodity that the East had to offer in abundance and it was much desired in the West. While war and peace can be seen throughout all those centuries in which the Silk Road persisted, one fact never changedtrade helped to develop nations. Commodities such as silk and spices were not the only things to trade hands; ideas, religions, and technology did as well. Trade allowed different people from different societies to connect, share information and goods, and learn from one another. In many cases, trade promoted and fostered peace because so many stakeholders had an interest in peace thanks to the benefits that peace could bring to trade.
One of the first instances of this, for example, is the Pax Romana that the Roman Empire implemented in the first century AD (Khan Academy). It lasted for nearly 200 years and during that time there were very few wars. What the Han dynasty in China understood was the same that Rome saw: peace bred stability which bred prosperity via trade. As Adam Smith would explain several centuries later, nations that are good at producing something will naturally find it in everyones best interests to be on a good fitting with other nations so that they can trade what they are good at producing for what the other nations are also good at producing.
Buddhism, which originated in India, spread to China thanks to the Silk Road. Today, Buddhism is often associated with China, even though that it is not where it originated. This is but one example of how nations become well-known for something that did not even originate with them. Tomato sauce coming from Italy is another exampletomatoes are not native to Italy but were brought there through trade with the Americas. Thus, one could argue that Italian food actually came from America. That of course would not happen until after 1492, when Columbus would sail West to find the Indies and discover by accident the Americas.
Controlling not only the Silk Road through the Middle East but also the resources that were so valuable to trade became an important issue throughout the Middle Ages. The rise of Islam brought about various wars as groups sought to close or open the various trade routes. When Byzantium learned how the silk worm produces its silk, the monopoly on silk that China enjoyed came to an endit was no longer able to control the...
…the US towards stifling the self-determination of nations by attempting to restrict their influence in the trafficking of ideologies. It was meant to be seen as a positive step for
capitalism. However, the problem that emerged, particularly in the 1990s was that the US began exporting labor, offshoring jobs so that companies could cut costs by hiring cheap labor in
Asia. This effectively killed manufacturing in the US. China became the dominant producer of goods in the world and it did so on the cheap. Its economy grew while the
middle class in the US began to shrink. In the
21st century, Trump has called on US companies to bring manufacturing back to the US and has initiated a
trade war with China for this reason.
In conclusion, trade tends to affect nations in one of two ways: it promotes peace; or it leads to war. It promotes peace when nations see that they both stand to benefit from a win-win environment in which they all get to share in the exchange of goods and ideas to one and alls benefit. It is win a sense of competition emerges among the states that the issue of trade begins to lead towards the drumbeats of war. Controlling trade routes and trading posts has been seen through the Middle Ages, following the rise of Islam in the Middle East and prior to the Mongolian Conquest. It is being seen again today what with the US engaged in a zero-sum game with the other world powers. Control of the sea lanes and the New Silk Road that China aims to reopen is at the heart of the tension between the East and…
